Must-see art exhibitions outside London: 2019

Marking the centenary: Future Forest, Thetford

Tom Piper, designer of the popular poppy installation for the WW1 anniversary, creates a second public display to commemorate the centenary. Future Forest unveils on the Norfolk-Suffolk border on 4 October for 8 months. Featuring bright and mysterious life-size models drawn from classical literature, Piper collaborates with acclaimed sculptor Lisa Wright. The sculptures are made from bio-resin instead of plastic, so viewers consider their role as forest custodians.

The Half, Lawrence Batley Theatre, Huddersfield

For 35 years, photographer Simon Annand has been wandering the backstage corridors and dressing rooms of the UK's theatres, capturing that magical half hour before an actor steps out on stage. An exhibition at the Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield showcases the fruits of Annand's labour with images including portraits of Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Meera Syal and a very young looking Colin Firth.

Last Supper in Pompeii, Ashmolean Museum

Archeologists continue to uncover the concealed treasures of Pompeii to this day. From exquisite mosaics to everyday crockery, each discovery provides an ever greater insight into the daily lives of the inhabitants of this ill-fated city. Now, a new exhibition at Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum puts the appetites of antiquity under the spotlight by delving into Pompeian food rituals.

George Stubbs: All Done From Nature, MK Gallery

George Stubbs examined the natural world with a forensic eye, but the resultant paintings were anything but staid. This exhibition at MK Gallery examines his meticulous studies of animals – exotic and domestic – with over 100 paintings and drawings, all of which capture the beauty of the animal kingdom.

Tal R: Eventually all Museums will be Ships

At the newly re-christened Hastings Contemporary (formerly the Jerwood Gallery), Danish artist Tan R presents his exhibition Eventually all Museums will be Ships. The exhibition will showcase the artist's bold and experimental approach to painting.

Seaside: Photographed, Turner Contemporary

Combining photographs from well-known photographers and amateurs alike, this wonderful exhibition examines the great British seaside in all its glory. Including a series made specifically for the show by artist Grace Lau, this highly relatable exhibition spans decades, highlighting our relationship with beaches and seaside towns.

Paula Rego: Obedience and Defiance, MK Gallery

MK Gallery in Milton Keynes has just reopened following a major expansion, which has doubled the exhibition space. In June a major retrospective of Paula Rego's work – the first in England in over a decade – will grace the new gallery space. Rego's long career examines the challenges of womanhood, most of which she has faced herself, but she has a wicked sense of humour. Expect fairytales and monsters in familiar surroundings.

Huguette Caland, Tate St Ives

This May Tate St Ives, winner of the Art Fund Museum of the Year Award in 2018, presents a solo show of work by Lebanese artist Huguette Caland. Caland's work sits between the abstract and the figurative, centring on the female form. The colourful paintings and intricate drawings in this exhibition are taken from the late 60s to early 80s but Caland's career has spanned 48 years. In that time she has collaborated with artists, designers and writers and, while living in Paris, she worked with the fashion designer Pierre Cardin. This exhibition will include a selection of the fabrics that she created with him.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh: Making the Glasgow Style, Liverpool Walker Art Gallery

Born in 1868, Scottish artist Charles Rennie Mackintosh pioneered the Art Nouveau movement in the UK and championed The Glasgow Style – a term which refers today to the design and decorative arts centred around the work by teachers, students and graduates of the Glasgow School of Art circa 1890 – 1920.

Exploring the life and work of Rennie Mackintosh and his contemporaries, this exhibition presents more than 250 objects from the period. Expect an eclectic display of decorative objets d'art, drawings, stained glass windows, paintings, sculpture and more.

Vuillard: The Poetry of Everyday Life, The Holburne Museum

Like his compatriot Pierre Bonnard, French artist Edouard Vuillard is best known for his intimate interior scenes of domesticity. Influenced by Gauguin and Degas, Vuillard experimented with distortion and pattern in his work, exploring the psychological realm of domestic objects. This majestic exhibition focuses on the first 10 to 15 years of his mature career, presenting delicate drawings alongside prints and paintings from private collections rarely seen before in the UK.

Keith Haring, Tate Liverpool

Friends with Jean-Michel Basquiat and Jenny Holzer, Keith Haring rose to fame as an artist-activist in 1980s New York. A champion of the city's counter-culture art scene, Haring is best known for his painted scrawls on subways and large-public art installations that broached socio-political issues, including AIDS, homophobia and drug addiction.

This June the first major exhibition of Haring's phenomenal work comes to Tate Liverpool. Vibrant paintings, drawings, and sculptures will sit alongside posters, videos and photographs that capture the vibrancy of 1980s New York street culture.

Yorkshire Sculpture International 2019, The Hepworth Wakefield, Leeds Art Gallery, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Henry Moore Institute

Running across four art galleries in Leeds and Wakefield for 100 days, this free sculpture festival celebrates sculpture in all its glorious forms. Each of the four galleries will host curated exhibitions, displaying everything from contemporary sculpture to renowned sculptural works by Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth. Yorkshire Sculpture International will be accompanied by a series of complimentary events, talks and workshops.

Bridget Riley, Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

Vibrating abstractions, psychedelic surfaces, and graphic patterns. Britain's most revered queen of optical experiences gets a solo show at the Scottish National Gallery this summer, before her major exhibition at Hayward Gallery London.

Riley's first major large-scale museum retrospective held in the UK for 16 years charts the pivotal moments in the artist's prolific career, from her early monochrome paintings of the 1960s to recent large-scale wall paintings. Spanning 70 years of Riley's work, this exhibition offers an unparalleled insight into the creative trajectory of one of the most groundbreaking artists of our time.

Otobong Nkanga, Tate St Ives

Nigerian artist Otobong Nkanga – the current artist-in-residence at the Cornish arm of Tate – explores the complex relationship between land, environment, natural resources and the body in a diverse array of though-provoking paintings, drawings and sculpture.

If you make it all the way down to St Ives, we also recommend heading to the nearby Barbara Hepworth museum to see the magical home and sculpture garden of Modernist sculptor Barbara Hepworth. Two for one!